Access to care. With that i yield to the Ranking Member, ms. Brown for any opening remark she may have. Thank you, mr. Chairman. For calling this hearing today. Following the wait time scandal of phoenix, Congress Passed and president obama signed the veterans access choice and accountability act of 2014. In it, we mandated there be an independent assessment of veterans healthcare. The assessment highlight many of the things we hear from our veterans. We hear that va provides excellent healthcare, especially healthcare related to the special needs of our veterans. We also hear that in certain areas, the va is at the forefront of healthcare in this country. We also hear from our veterans that va care is often fragmented and that it can be difficult to navigate and arrange nonva care. We hear of long wait times and limited access. Following the assessment in the Service Transportation and veterans healthcare act of 2015 we mandated a report by the va regarding a plan for how va could con
Especially Health Care Related to the special needs of our veterans. We also hear that in certain areas, v. A. Is at the forefront of health care in this country. We also hear from our veterans that v. A. Care is often fragm t fragmented and that it can be difficult to navigate and arrange nonv. A. Care. We hear of long wait times and limited access. Following the assessment in the Service Transportation and Veterans Health care choice improvement act of 2015, we have mandated a report by the d. A. Regarding a plan for how v. A. Could consolidate all purchase care programs into one new Veterans Choice Program. We received that report last year, and this committee is currently working with the v. A. On the best way to implement the legislative requests. The v. A. Is on track to see, listen to this, 6,277,300 unique patients and 9 million 244 enrollment in fiscal 2015. They completed 56. 7 million appointments. Nearly 2 million more than fiscal 2014. That is rough lly 226 appointmes per
Sick left and right. In places where we see this kind of spread through health care personnel, many times what we see when we look is that those Infection Prevention practices are either not well established or, if theyre established, the adherence to them is spotty. And thats certainly what we seem to be seeing in many parts of the world. Host your colleague at the cdc, dr. Tom frieden, tweeted out that mers risk remains very low, Ongoing Communications help us how to reduce the spread. So how is the cdc working with the World Health Organization on thisesome. Guest so we have many partners, and one of the major one is the the World Health Organization. The who sends teams around the world and is able to bring together multinational groups that help us Bridge Communications challenges and bringing multiple perspectives to the ground. There are also regional offices that are supported by the World Health Organization, and so the combination of cdcs Global Platforms and whos platform si
Nd we have exposures to things but chemicals and on and on. What it means is that when at v. A. Hospitals, the average presentations are things wrong with an individual is five to seven per individual. The formula was built on a middle class p. P. O. s and h. M. O. s and they had one to three average presentations of things wrong with them. Which means that the burn rate of resources at v. A. Is much higher. Thats particularly true as old guys from vietnam age and become from re aged and uncles korea and fathers from world war ii. Presentations per individual of o. I. F. , o. E. F. Veterans is over a dozen for each individual that comes through. So the point is, we need to reprogram some money. Pass the have management accountability on this side of the hill and reprogram money and frankly go for a supplemental if that turns out that its needed. In the meantime, we would urge everybody, every hospital, something we have been urging is screened screen everybody at the hospital for the f
We have had everything talked about from dollars to construction to milestones to all sorts of stuff. Helpful. Im going to ask you, each one of you, because you represent veterans in this country that are being served by the v. A. , i think you have an understanding of what the challenges are out there. You tell me what you would do first to fix the v. A. And what you would do second. I am assuming there will be 3, 4, 5 more down the line. Is it money . Is it the resources they have the need to be allocated different . Do we need to put a focus on hiring professionals . You cannot say do all of them. We want to hold folks accountable. If you can give me your priorities of what we need to do, it could be helpful. Assessment is the first thing that needs to happen. Speakhave heard the v. A. , they have enough money. They do not have the accurate numbers. System,are gaming the how many actual visits are they going to have a year . Instead of having 85 million, will of the 150 million . Yo